Page 83 of Which Witch is Willing?
He turned to face her, and she realized he held a beautiful red fox with a bottlebrush tail against his chest.
Her legs buckled beneath her, and she dropped to the stairs in disbelief. The moment the fox’s eyes connected with Claire, he pushed from Dru’s arms and dashed toward her.
She grabbed him, and her soul instantly connected with his. “Kai?” she said half-laughing and half-crying as she brushed dirt from his fur. “What? How?”
Moira wiped tears from her own cheeks. “I guess he’s your little phoenix fox risen from the ashes.”
“That’s a perfect description, Moira,” Aerin said.
Claire cried happy tears this time as she petted him and kissed his head. “My little phoenix fox.”
Moira suddenly bent forward and gasped, drawing everyone’s attention.
Nick grabbed her to keep her from falling. “What’s wrong, Moira?”
He glanced to the others with a panicked look on his face.
Moira breathed deeply and turned to them all. “The baby wants out, and he’s gettin’ pretty insistent, but my body won’t release him. I’m not sure I can manage this for much longer.”
Nick scooped her into his arms. “I’m going to take her to the bedroom and stay with her until she’s settled, and then I intend to fucking conquer this town until I find Lucy and end her.”
Claire looked up to find Dru watching, and she nodded. She would never have a happy life with this man and her fox until their enemy was destroyed. It would take all of them to achieve it, but the time had come to end Lucy or risk losing her sisters, her home, and possibly the world.
IV
Aerin
By Kerrigan Byrne
40
“Ihave a bad feeling about this,” Tierra said as she tracked Aerin’s marching progress across the ever-verdant lawns of the de Moray Mansion. “You look irate.”
Aerin’s ears pricked to the chime of Tierra’s bangled wrists as she patted and bounced the fussy baby.
Claire finished wrapping the last lock of Moira’s black cherry hair around a curling iron before she paused to look up. “You lookmad. Real mad. Like,hold on to your knickers, there’s about to be a hurricane,mad.”
“You’d better stow that stirring wind until after the weddin’” Moira warned in a voice meant to carry over the diminishing distance between her and Aerin’s advance.
Moira sat at a makeshift vanity constructed from a gilded mirror and rustic desk, dragged out of doors and propped in the gazebo that had become thede factobride bower. A cobalt silk robe shimmered in the autumn sun, seeming to waterfall around her. The effect was only slightly hindered by the enormous belly she had to rest on her own lap, on top of which a plate of half-consumed pork cracklins surrounded a small lake of Louisiana hot sauce balanced.
The first absurd thought that burped through Aerin’s mind was that she could only imagine what poor Nick’s first “you may kiss the bride” kiss would taste/smell like.
The second was evoked by the actual eruption from the infant’s esophagus that competed with the concerning volcanic rumbles that were, even now, stirring noisily beneath Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, and Mount St. Helen’s, respectively.
Forget the methane farting cows, vegans should start protesting the gasses emitted from a one, Violet de Moray.
With Tierra’s layered sage gown flowing in the—admittedly—increasing breeze, and Claire’s silky scarlet number draping from her hot curves, they looked like the elemental goddesses they were.
Aerin would have taken the time to appreciate the tableau…
If she were not so fucking pissed off.
With some deft sewing skills and no little bit of magic, Tierra had turned a circus-tent sized cream bolt of lace they’d found in the attic into a wedding dress. The gown hung from a railing beam above them, waiting to be donned once Moira’s coiffeur was in place.
Aerin slapped the gown aside as she, quite literally, stormed up the steps, letting it swing like a pendulum back into place behind her.
“Irate?” She gritted from between teeth fury had fused together. “Mad?” The hairs at her neck prickled and crackled with dark, electric magic, and awareness of the entourage of four distinct men she trailed in her wake.
